New Rules
by goldensnitch18
Summary: Hermione constructs a new set of rules designed to keep her out of a specific brand of trouble named Draco Malfoy. Rules make her feel safe and comfortable, but she always seems to forget that she isn't very good at following them.
1. Chapter 1

**New Rules**

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 **Goldensnitch18**

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 **Summary:** Hermione constructs a new set of rules designed to keep her out of a specific brand of trouble named Draco Malfoy. Rules make her feel safe and comfortable, but she always seems to forget that she isn't very good at following them.

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Inspired by New Rules by Dua Lipa

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 **Disclaimer:** I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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 **Chapter One: New Rules**

"For fuck's sake!"

Hermione lifted her head from her pillow, her mind still foggy from sleep, sex, and too much champagne. She knew what she would see before her brain could even open her eyes: a head with shaggy blonde hair on the pillow beside her and a small, irritated woman standing in the doorway, her hands in fists on her hips. Ginny's hair was stacked on her head, held in place by invisible ties. Her eyes blazed.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Draco murmured. He closed the space between them and kissed her softly below her ear.

"Probably," she agreed, feeling beyond guilty at being caught with him in her bed … again. This was, however, the first time he had been in her bed since she had sworn him off, knowing that this game they were playing was only going to end in her heartbroken and disappointed.

She watched him crawl from the bed, luckily with his pants already in place, and pull on his trousers. Ginny glared at him the entire time while she watched him collect his dress robes, tie, and wand. "See you later, Gin."

"Get the fuck out of my flat," Ginny snapped at him. She took a step into Hermione's bedroom and slammed the door behind her. "Really?" she asked.

Hermione pulled the blankets over her head and groaned. "I know."

"I thought you were done." Hermione felt the weight of her friend at the end of the bed and then the gentle tug of her blankets being pulled away from her face. She didn't want to face Ginny or what she had done, but the situation was beyond that now.

"I was. I am. God, I don't know. He's just …"

"Really bad for you." Ginny shook her head and sighed softly. "You know I don't care if you want to be with him, but you've said over and over that being with him isn't really an option. It just hurts you, and I hate seeing the aftermath over and over." Hermione knew she was right. Ginny knew better than anyone what Draco moving in and out of her life did to Hermione. She would get one blissful night with him, perfect in every way, and then weeks of doubt, anger, frustration, and regret before it was time to rinse and repeat when she ran into him again. She and Ginny had been living together for nearly five years, so her friend had witnessed the cycle each time Hermione lived through it.

"I know. I don't know what's wrong with me. He's a cocky, rude shit. He's incapable of being with one person. He's constantly making my work difficult. But, I just … I can't say no to him. Anyone else, but not him." Hermione groaned again and ran a hand over her destroyed hair. It was going to be a disaster to fix what they had done to it during the night. "I never should have let my guard down around him in the first place."

"Maybe you need to come up with some boundaries to help you avoid this." Ginny waved at the side of the bed where Draco had been sleeping a few minutes ago.

"Like rules?" Hermione asked, her eyes growing bright. That might just work. She was good with rules. Rules helped everything make sense. There probably wasn't much sense to be made from this disaster with Draco, but it might help her to actually move on with her life. After all, that was the goal. That had been the goal for the better part of a year now. Ginny had tried over and over to set her up with guys, hoping that she would find something in one of them that would help her to separate from Draco once and for all. So far, her efforts had obviously been in vain. Hermione had even gone to the dinner last night with a date. The thought of ending the evening in her bed with Draco hadn't even occurred to her. How did a strong, intelligent woman start the evening with a perfectly pleasant companion and end it with that asshole in her bed?

"Yes, exactly like rules," Ginny agreed. She stood then, moving over to Hermione's closet. "Is your dress in here?"

It took Hermione a few moments to realize that Ginny meant the dress she was wearing to the party at the Burrow today. "Shit, what time is it?" she asked.

"Half past eleven," Ginny called from the closet as the sound of sliding hangers began.

Hermione nearly flew from the bed and into the bathroom. She turned the shower on and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Some days, she felt beautiful and confident in her body. Other days, like today, she wasn't sure what in the world Draco saw in her, which immediately resulted in her being mad at herself for caring what he saw when he looked at her anyway. She shouldn't care. She shouldn't want him to see or feel anything when he looked at her, yet …

She was in love with him.

She wouldn't admit that to anyone. Ginny didn't know, or at least had never been told by Hermione. Draco was too clueless and self involved to ever figure out that another human being might have actual feelings for him. She shouldn't care what he thought about what he saw when he looked at her, but she did. Hermione sighed at her reflection and felt the water for temperature before stepping into the shower.

"Your dress is hanging out here. Do you need something for your head?" Ginny called from the bedroom.

"Yes. Please." Hermione called back, all too aware that the fog was turning into a full-blown headache now. The more she thought about Ginny's suggestion to make rules for dealing with Draco, the more she thought it might be the perfect solution, but what kind of rules did she need to put in place? As water poured down onto her and began the process of clearing her mind, she imagined the things that always lead to this, their nights together in her bed, and started to compose a list in her head.

 _Don't read his post._ Draco was surprisingly eloquent in writing when he wanted to be. He sent her letters at work frequently; she wasn't sure why. He must enjoy messing with her mind. Mind games were one of his favorite things. That she had known for quite a while, before she started winding up naked with him on a regular basis. It was impossible to figure out his intentions ever because she was nearly always sure that he was playing a game of some sort or another.

 _Don't talk to him alone._ That was how she ended up here on this particular morning. She could still see the smirk on his lips from the moment he had closed the space between them last night. His lips had gone straight to her ear, kissing her softly between words. "Let's get out of here," he'd whispered, and it had seemed like the smartest thing in the world to do at that moment with no one around to see them leave.

 _Don't answer his Floo calls_. This wasn't a frequent problem. He liked to avoid contact with Ginny, even before she had been quite as adamant about him not being around. Despite Ginny's connection to him through Harry, she'd never fully trusted him. This was probably because he'd never fully committed to being anything with Hermione, and Ginny knew that Hermione wanted a partner, not a toy. Occasionally, he would decide that contacting Hermione was worth risking putting up with Ginny's attitude.

 _Don't let him in_. This sort of went with the Floo, but also applied to the nights he showed up shitfaced at the front door after a particularly bad night at work, which led to her final rule; The most important one of all.

 _Don't be his friend_. Hermione wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to figure out the parts of himself that were still hurting all these years later, because he was hurting. That much was clear to her, but helping him was killing her slowly. There was no just friends between them, and every time she watched him leave in the morning, a part of her went with him, chipping away at her own soul, damaging it. She had to love herself enough to force him to find another way to heal whatever was hurting him.

As she pulled on the dress she had bought with Ginny for the party today, she looked at herself in the mirror again, trying to see herself with only her eyes, to push away what he may think, and focus only on what was truly there. She ran over the rules in her mind as she put on her makeup and swallowed the potion Ginny handed her.

 _Don't read his post._

 _Don't talk to him alone._

 _Don't answer his Floo calls_.

 _Don't let him in_.

 _Don't be his friend._

She could do it. She was a smart, confident, independent woman, and she didn't need him or his games in her life. She could do it.

"You ready?" her friend asked.

"Yeah, of course. Let's go celebrate!" Hermione forced a smile. She really was happy for Harry and Ginny. They had been together since Hogwarts, working so hard to stay a pair as they each grew into their respective lives, and they were finally getting married. Harry had proposed just a couple of weeks ago, and Molly had insisted on having a celebration. Hermione was happy for them, but making the shitty decision to have Draco over last night and waking up to deal with the emotional consequences didn't really put her in the mood to celebrate an engagement.

XXX

"I'm sorry if I made you late." Hermione heard his voice in her ear before she even realized that he was there. She jumped, taking a step forward as she did her best not to spill any of her champagne.

"Fuck, Draco," she whispered as quietly as she could. Harry was standing at the front of the tent thanking Molly and Arthur for hosting. Hermione was hiding in the back, trying to avoid the very person who had found her.

"Well, I thought you would want to hear his speech, but we could slip off." His hand ran down the back of her dress until he rested it at the swell of her ass. She turned to glare at him, trying desperately not to draw the attention of anyone else in the room.

"Stop," she told him, and he pulled his hand back as he smirked at Ginny and Harry in the front of the tent. They both seemed so effortlessly happy. Hermione knew their relationship itself wasn't effortless. They both brought a considerable amount of baggage, but somehow they made it work. Hermione had never really been part of anything like that. Her own relationships seemed to get consecutively worse all the way up to whatever this wasn't with Draco.

"You've been avoiding me," he told her. He moved to stand beside her. As he watched Harry he lifted a glass to his lips and sipped at the amber liquid within. "It was nice to get reacquainted."

A shiver ran down her spine at the memory of him in her bed, his body moving into hers as she pulled him down, kissing him deeply. "I told you I was done," she reminded him as her skin tingled with the echoes of his fingertips.

"You are a very confusing woman indeed. You never seem to know what you want, Hermione." He was smirking now. The same damn smirk that he had perfected at Hogwarts. The same damn smirk that had driven her to terrible things behind closed doors.

The rest of the guests in the tent began to clap. A few people were whooping and cheering as Harry grabbed Ginny by the waist pulling her close to kiss her. Hermione joined the applause as she turned to Draco. "For the record, I'm very done. I'm not interested. It won't be happening again," she told him.

"If that is what you truly want," he told her.

"It is." She looked back up at her friends and watched as the began to move through the small crowd, greeting their friends and family.

Behind Draco, Hermione watched Ron walk into the tent. He gave her a small wave and joined them in the back corner. "Can we eat now?" he asked as he approached. He was wearing his Auror robes and looked exhausted.

"Long night?" Hermione asked him.

"Longest. Is Oliver here yet?" Ron turned to look around at the people in the tent.

"He's with Bill and Charlie," Draco said, pointing out their table.

"I better go see him. I'll see you two later." He said, and he left to make his way through the crowd.

"Do you think they'll make it?" Draco asked her, his eyes back to the couple.

"Yes." She was confident in her two friends. She had watched them grow up, watched them adapt and change and relearn who the other was time and time again as they transformed from children fighting things beyond their capabilities to adults following their own paths in life.

"Blaise is getting divorced," Draco said, a frown spreading across his lips.

"Hasn't his mother been married like eight times?" she asked. Clearly, the apple wasn't falling far from the tree.

"Something like that. But, then again my mother married once and look how that ended up." He sighed, and Hermione tried not to get sucked into his sad backstory. His father was in Azkaban, had been since the war. Hermione hadn't seen Narcissa once since. Not in person. Not in the papers. Not in a single current photo in Draco's office. They never talked about her much. Sometimes, Draco would reference her vaguely like this, but nothing anything of substance, nothing that might indicate what she was doing with her life now.

She was saved from having to come up with something to say by the appearance of Harry and Ginny. "Draco," Harry said joyfully as he hugged the blond man to him, clapping him on the back loudly.

"Congratulations," Draco told the couple as he pulled back from his partner. His wide smile held no sign of the doubts he apparently had about the decision Harry had made to spend the rest of his life with one woman.

"Thank you, Draco," Ginny told him. Her irritation with him was so well concealed that Hermione wondered what Ginny could be hiding from her. She would clearly be very good at it. "Hermione, my Mum was looking for you," she said, giving Hermione a smile.

Hermione could have kissed her for giving her the out to step away from the conversation. "I'll go find her then."

As she walked away, she heard Harry and Draco start talking work. "Might need to take a holiday during your honeymoon. I'm not pulling shifts with Norton."

"You can't do that. I need you in the department meetings," Harry told him, laughing loudly.

"Granger can handle the meetings. She'll keep us up to date," Draco insisted, and Hermione wanted to turn around and set him straight, but there was no need.

"I'm pretty sure Hermione has her own job to do," Ginny told them both, and Hermione felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her friend once again. She had enough to deal with as Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office without worrying about leading up the Auror Department as well. Draco would just have to live with Norton while Harry was out.

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XOXO

Meg


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Don't Read His Post

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The Monday morning department meeting was one of the only constants in Hermione's job at the Ministry. Being the Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was a much more dynamic position than Hermione had ever expected when she had made the move from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Her position required her to lead up a variety of offices that fell under her leadership, each of which sought to enforce and regulate the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy.

In the beginning, Hermione had been upset about the promotion. It wasn't that she thought the department wasn't important, but rather that she wouldn't be able to initiate enough change to make a difference. She had also remembered all too well the terrible things that Dolores Umbridge had achieved while holding the same office. She had found her hesitance to be unnecessary. Her position required her to be extremely involved with the disciplinary measures put in place in the magical world and gave her a voice in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement department meetings. It could easily be argued that the DMLE meeting was the most influential place to be outside of the Minister's own advisory board.

Having the ear of the Head of the DMLE was not a perk that Hermione was going to ignore. She utilized the meetings to the fullest and typically enjoyed attending them. Harry and Draco, however, typically did not. Harry was the Head of the Auror Office and had appointed his partner, Draco Malfoy, the position of Deputy Head. When Monday morning rolled around, she would make her way to the meeting room, claim her seat, spread her carefully organized topics for discussion, and prepare her notes. She was typically the first person in the room, and today was no different.

By the time she was joined by another office head, she was settled and flipping through her latest report from the head of the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes, making notes on the margins to remember for her own weekly office meeting that would occur that afternoon. By the time Harry and Draco wandered in together, laughing and carrying mugs of steaming tea, Hermione had finished her report and the room was bustling with activity.

Harry walked around the table to his regular spot beside her, trailed by Malfoy. "Morning," Harry told her, dropping into his chair after place one mug in front of her and other in front of his own seat at the table. It swiveled left and right as he looked around at the other office heads.

"Morning," she told him. Draco took the seat beside Harry, but his movements were much more careful, his body graceful as he took his chair and leaned back in it as if he was the department head himself. He always seemed to command a room this way, as if he had been raised to expect all eyes on him in any situation, which she supposed he probably had. She had found this ability intriguing in the beginning. If she was really being honest, everything about the way Draco carried himself professionally was intriguing. In light of the war, it was more common for the marked and their families to fade into the background. Narcissa's invisibility was much more common than her son's front row seat to the reformation of the Wizarding World.

She would never forget Harry and Ron's first day of Auror Training. Harry had come home dirty and exhausted to Grimmauld where they had been living together. His face was stretched the way it got when something was irritating him. She had spent the night listening to him guess what in the world Malfoy's motives could be for joining the Auror department. Over the next four months, Harry had written about Malfoy multiple times in his letters to her at Hogwarts. She had watched on parchment as his skepticism and agitation morphed to something similar to pity, and finally a reluctant acceptance of what the other man was doing.

The first time she saw Draco after the war was at the DMLE holiday party. She hadn't been part of the department then, but Ron had brought her as his plus one. He walked in with that same assurance that he was in control. His dress robes melded to his body perfectly. His eyes seemed to shine like cooled steel as they moved across the room. Once he spotted Harry, he moved towards them with determination. He grabbed a glass from a tray as he moved, sipping at it.

"Malfoy," Harry greeted him, extending his hand. Draco took it freely, shaking Harry's hand. It was such an odd sight that Hermione openly stared along with the majority of the people around them. "Potter." He nodded at Ron then, who Hermione knew was not as close to acceptance as Harry had come.

They all stood there then, the four of them looking awkward and out of place as Draco stood across from them looking as if nothing in the world could possibly every penetrate his cool demeanor. "You know Ginny and Hermione," Harry said awkwardly.

"Yes, of course." Draco had said. "Granger, it's good to see you."

Hermione's mouth had fallen open a little at that, and she tried to quickly stumble out words to cover it. "Yeah. You too."

He hadn't stayed with them, not at that party, but it had been the beginning of something unexpected, something no one could have predicted. Harry and Draco had been appointed partners upon graduation of their training, and they had quickly shown that they excelled together. Ron often told her that watching them in the field was like watching two halves of the same person. To be fair, she hadn't really believed him until she sat through her first DMLE heads meeting. It was one thing to watch Draco and Harry interact outside of work, but watching them in a meeting was nearly a thing of beauty. They played off of each other perfectly, their strengths corresponding with such perfect harmony with the other's weaknesses.

Today, the meeting started off slowly. The Head of the Department started in by reviewing information they all already knew, well, that they would know if they read their messages. Hermione suspected that more than one person present would be hearing it for the first time. It was disgraceful, really. They should be setting a better example for their employees, but some of them couldn't be bothered with that, of course.

It was during this review that Hermione noticed Draco's neat handwriting join her own as she took notes.

 _How was the rest of your weekend?_

If he was trying to get her to think about how her weekend had started, causing her the skin of her neck and cheeks to flush, he was successful. She put her hand on her neck, still facing the front of the room, hoping that he hadn't noticed her reaction. She needed to ignore him. She needed to stick her plan. The words faded within a few seconds, and she went back to taking notes in peace until his writing shimmered back onto the page a few minutes later.

 _I couldn't stop thinking about you._

Another game, this time in the middle of work. He clearly had no shame and wasn't taking her insistence that she was done to heart. He would figure it out eventually, she supposed. For the time being, she grabbed her wand, and silently murmured a Blocking Charm on the parchment to keep his magic away from it.

When she shifted her attention back to the conversation, it had shifted to something far more interesting: the Quidditch World Cup Britain would be hosting in two years.

"Sir," she said clearly, inserting herself into a pause. "I believe we discussed the Improper Use of Magic Office leading up the planning For the next cup directly with the International Confederation of Wizards."

"Yes, Granger. I spoke with them. They are expecting your owl to get started. I will put the entirety of the Department at your disposal for this."

"Excellent. Thank you." She was sure that she could save the Ministry from the utter headache the last Quidditch World Cup had been, even before the Death Eaters had shown up.

"Don't thank me until it's over. You may soon regret the request." The lanky man at the head the table shook his head as if he thought she might be crazy.

"I find that with proper planning, nearly anything is manageable, sir," she assured him, already adding ideas for her letter to the IWC onto her parchment.

"If anyone can pull it off, it's you."

XXX

Hermione stretched, her body humming and aching in the best possible way with the movement. She had been sitting for too long. She had worked late the last three days and then brought work home to the dining room table. Her mind was charging full speed ahead on the Quidditch World Cup preparations, but she also had to continue her normal workload, so she was finding it easy to fill her days and nights.

Ginny sat across the table, staring down at a magazine filled with beautiful brides in the finest dress robes. "She's mad," she said for the fifth time that evening. "Mad. Mad. Mad."

"You're her only daughter," Hermione reminded her for the fifth time.

"Hermione, this set of dress robes is half my salary," she said, her eyes blazing with a sense of betrayal that Hermione found amusing, not that she would ever tell Ginny this. She thought it was atrocious as well, but Ginny seemed offended that the bridal wear even existed.

"You know Harry can afford it," Hermione told her. "He wants you to have everything you want."

"I don't want this," Ginny sighed, shutting the magazine and throwing it back into the stack which promptly fell over, spreading magazines filled with cake, flowers, and food across the table. "If I wore any of those robes, I would be thinking about how much it cost all night and terrified to ruin it. I wish my Mum understood that."

"Have you tried telling her?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. 'Looking doesn't cost anything, dear,'" Ginny said in a perfect imitation of her mother. "Ron got off so fucking easy last year. I thought we were going to avoid all of this."

"Well, he did marry a man, and they both insisted on eloping. Your mother didn't have anyone to fret over about these things. Maybe that's why she's being so silly about yours."

"Clearly, we should have shoved Ron into bridal robes, Hermione. Damn it." Ginny laughed then, and Hermione joined in at the image of Ron in one of the bridal sets in the magazine walking down the aisle to a beaming Oliver. It was too good not to laugh.

"You and Harry will figure it out. You should put all of this away and not think about it anymore tonight." Hermione began to gather all of the magazines again, putting them back into a neat stack before she waved her wand and sent them away from the table.

"I know we will. Mum is just insistent that these things need to be decided so that we can start planning, but Harry and I are just trying to enjoy being engaged, you know? We aren't in a huge rush." She lifted her glass of wine to her lips to take a drink.

"You need something to distract her with. Maybe Bill and Fleur will have another baby for you," Hermione teased.

"Oh, yes." Ginny actually giggled. "I know you have a six-month-old and a toddler running the house already, but could you consider getting Fleur pregnant again to distract Mum from my nuptials for a few months?"

Hermione nearly snorted her own wine. "What could go wrong with that?"

"Maybe George and Angelina are ready for a baby," Ginny said then, grinning conspiratorially. "I'll have to ask him."

"He is probably less likely to hex you for suggesting it," Hermione agreed.

"You know, you could find someone," Ginny told her innocently. "Mum loves you. If you were starting to settle down, well … it might distract her."

"I highly doubt my dating would pull her away from Witch Weekly's Blushing Brides Summer Edition," Hermione countered.

"It might. And, you deserve to have someone."

"I'm fine alone. It will happen eventually." Hermione took another drink of her wine and hated how quickly the world Draco had written on her parchment at their meeting earlier in the week popped into her head.

 _I couldn't stop thinking about you._

She couldn't stop thinking about him either. That was the problem.

XXX

On Friday, Hermione had to leave work on time. Harry, Ron, and Oliver were coming over for dinner. Because of this, she worked through her lunch. It happened fairly often, and she kept a small stash of snacks in one of her desk drawers to tide her over on days when it did happen.

Hermione was in the middle of drafting a sentencing recommendation and eating an apple when a paper bag arrived unceremoniously on her desk. She let out an undignified squeak of surprise when it popped into the room, and her hand flew to cover her racing heart as if she thought it was going to leap out of her chest. She silently chided herself for the reaction as she reached to grab the note attached to the bag.

 _You really should stop skipping lunch. Tell me I can see you this weekend._

She frowned down at the familiar print, her eyes reading over the words again and again before she pulled the bag to her and opened it. She knew from the smell exactly what it was before she even opened it. He had sent her Thai, one of her favorite meals to eat when she was working and couldn't be bothered to cook. They had eaten Thai together on multiple occasions, most of them while they were naked.

Eating it felt like a betrayal of her rules, but her stomach growled at her, and she conceded that if she didn't eat it, no one else would. She compromised by waiting to begin her meal until after she walked his note over to her fireplace, threw it inside, and used her wand to burn it to ash. She then vanished the ashes to his desk. Hopefully, he would get the message.

* * *

XOXO  
Meg


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Don't Talk To Him Alone

"Harry and I are going out tonight with the team," Ginny said over breakfast the next week. "I'm going to stay at his."

"K. I'll be sure to owl Molly and let her know." Hermione told her with a grin.

Ginny picked up a crumb from her toast and threw it across the table at her friend. "You wouldn't," she insisted, and it was incredibly true. She and Ginny kept each other's secrets. There was no blurred lines when it came to this. It was a hard and fast rule between them. Ginny didn't mention to anyone the mornings Draco woke up in Hermione's bed, and Hermione kept Molly Weasley from finding out that her sweet, pure daughter had been sleeping over at her boyfriend's house for every bit of the five years they had lived together.

It was a comfortable and beautiful thing to have a girlfriend she trusted this way. She hadn't really had that until she and Ginny had decided to move in together. She had been hesitant in the beginning, but it had quickly become clear that living with Ginny wasn't going to be like the six years she spent sharing a room with the girls at Hogwarts. Ginny wasn't out to tease her cruelly, spread rumors about her, or make her feel inadequate at everything slightly feminine.

"No. I won't. I'll probably work late though," Hermione told her.

"What a change," Ginny grumbled. "Late on a Friday "

Hermione frowned as she finished swallowing her bite of egg. She took a drink and shrugged. "It helps if I'm busy," she admitted.

"It shouldn't be this hard," Ginny told her softly, a change for the other woman from her many reassurances that Hermione was doing the right thing by ignoring Draco. Hermione had sent another letter back to his office in the same fashion as the one he had attached to her lunch, and he hadn't written her since.

"I know, but it is." Hermione sighed as she shoved her food around with her fork. "I miss him."

"Hermione," Ginny said sadly. "Can you … I mean … maybe things could be different between the two of you," she suggested.

"We've been having unattached casual sex for years," Hermione reminded her. "I don't think he's just going to wake up from that and decide he wants something serious with me all the sudden." Hermione stood, deciding that she couldn't eat any more. She flicked her wand to set her dishes to clearing and washing themselves, and she moved to gather her things for work.

"I suppose not," Ginny said. She didn't move from her spot. She was still in her pajamas which meant she must have a later practice today.

"See you tomorrow?" Hermione asked, and Ginny nodded, sending her a reassuring smile. Hermione tried to send one back before she stepped into the Floo Flames and headed for work.

As she spun towards the Ministry, the familiar images of her first time with Draco flooded her senses, reminding her of the way he had made her feel, the way she had ached to feel him again.

It was another Ministry Event. She was in a long strapless black gown, and this time she had come on her own invitation. Ron was bringing Oliver to events by then, struggling with being photographed and having their relationship dissected in the Prophet after each one. Hermione's hair was pulled up, the mess tamed into curls by hours of attention. Draco stared at her appreciatively as she walked up to him and their friends that night. He was solo as well, and they had been the only two not paired off.

When the dancing began, they joined the other young couples, dancing in a group until Hermione's face felt heated, her heart raced, and several curls had fallen free of the magic that was supposed to be holding them. During the slow music, they both vacated the floor, heading to get a drink, visit with other attendees, or sit at the table drinking and laughing about their friends. Finally, near the end of the evening, Draco stood from his seat, closing the space between them. He extended his hand to her. "Dance with me?" he asked.

She let him lead her onto the floor, her heart thumping strongly even though she had definitely calmed down from her last batch of dancing. When they stopped, he pulled her close to him, their hands finding their respective positions with a natural grace. "You never bring anyone to these things," she told him, sharing an observation she had made long before this night.

He laughed. "Who would want to come with me?" Self deprecation wasn't a common trait in him, but it did show up occasionally about the war, particularly his decisions in it. She was pretty sure with the way he looked in his robes and the fact that he and Harry were partners, that wasn't really a true assessment of the situation.

"I mean, surely you could use the Harry's partner angle to score some girls at the very least," she teased. "Some witches would do anything to be close to him."

"The day I have to rely on Potter to get a date is the day I retire from women all together," Draco told her.

"Ah. You're going to join Ron's team then. I'm sure he has some excellent suggestions for gentlemen you could ask to join you at the next one." She smiled innocently, and Draco's mouth worked into a half smile as his steel eyes blazed. He was so bloody close to her, his face just inches from hers. She stared at his lips and drug her bottom lip in with her teeth.

"If I had a date, I couldn't dance with you," he told her, and the space between them seemed to shrink.

"And, that is something you want to do?" she asked. She couldn't have looked away if she wanted. She was his willing captive, held in his gaze.

"Very badly," he said, his voice low enough that she was sure no one else could hear him. "I've wanted to dance with you from the moment you arrived."

"In front of everyone?" she asked, seeming to remember that they were surrounded by friends and colleagues. Behind him, she could see Ginny's head resting on Harry's shoulder as he whispered something in her ear.

"We could leave," he suggested. "If you wanted to dance somewhere more private." The way his hand slid down her back to graze the swell of her hips before it moved back up left no doubt in her mind exactly what he had in mind.

"Ginny is staying at Harry's tonight," she told him, sure that she had lost her mind. She didn't know what the hell had gotten into her, but she wanted him, and that seemed to be all that mattered in this moment.

He leaned in even closer, his lips so close to her ear that she could feel his breath as he spoke. "Just to be clear, Granger, I'm going to take you back to yours, strip this incredible dress off of you, and feel every inch of your skin."

After the dance ended, they seperated. She waited twenty minutes before making her excuses and leaving. The moment she arrived at home, she had started to doubt herself, and that only grew as she waited, knowing that Draco would be putting some time between their departures. Her tipsy, overactive brain was spinning scenario after scenario, most of them resulting with her in her flat alone while Draco danced the rest of the night with some other woman and took her home. She busied herself by dimming the lights in their sitting room and hunting down two glasses and a bottle of wine. She then spent ten minutes doubting whether she was doing too much, and another five trying to convince herself that she was just being crazy because she hadn't brought a man home in - well, a long time.

Finally, Draco stepped out of the Floo as she was pacing, biting her nails. She dropped her hand to her stomach and looked at him, her teeth pulling in her lip. He smiled at her, standing still in front of the fireplace. She moved first, closing the few steps between them.

"I was worried you might have changed your mind and locked the Floo," he told her.

She laughed, a flush spreading up her cheeks. "I thought you might have changed your mind and found a bloke to dance with."

Draco chuckled, pulling her into him with his hands. She stumbled as she moved, and he wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tightly against him. Her hand moved up his chest as their eyes locked again. "Not a chance," he told her. As he leaned down, drawing his lips ever closer to hers, her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, urging him on. Their lips touched gently then, their first kiss a soft whisper of things to come. It sent a shiver down her spine.

"Do you want a drink?" she asked against his lips. It was only polite to ask.

"No." He kissed her again, this time he pressed his lips hard against hers and heat replaced the shiver, spreading throughout her body. She didn't want a drink either. Honestly, she wanted to be in her bed.

Hermione put space between them again, took his hand, and pulled him along with her as she began to move backwards towards the hall to her room. He let her lead him easily, his eyes roaming the flat quickly and then back to her body. They reached her room shortly, and she felt the nerves bubble again in her stomach. She figured the best remedy for that was to just push forward and try and force her brain to stop. After Draco closed the door shut behind him, she moved back into his arms, kissing him deeply. She relished the way this simple act made her feel. Just the idea that no one knew where they were or what they were doing made it feel so forbidden to have him in her room, to be kissing him in her doorway, to be planning on stripping down to nothing with him.

She pulled at the back of his robes, pushing them away from his body. He let them fall, pooling behind him on the ground. He leaned back against the door as he pushed his shoes off and let her kiss him. Once they were off, he pulled at the silky fabric of her dress, moving it up her body. The sensation of the dress and his fingers riding up her legs made her sigh softly into his mouth. As he lifted the dress over her head, Hermione felt the nerves flare again at the knowledge that he was moments from seeing much more of her body than he ever had before.

He threw the dress on the ground and leaned back against the door again, his eyes sliding slowly down as his hands led a bath from her shoulder to her breasts, down her stomach, over her hip. "You're so bloody beautiful," he told her.

"You're so bloody dressed," she teased. He shook his head and reached for his tie. She pushed his hands away, and replaced them with her own. She slid the tie off his neck, dropping it beside his robes. She leaned into him, letting him resume his exploration of her skin as she unbuttoned his shirt. He had to stop to allow her to move it off his arms. He immediately moved to unbuckled his trousers, and she let him, but helped to push them down.

He lifted her into his arms then, causing her to wrap her legs around him as she held on tightly, kissing him with a new, desperate fervor. She could feel the heat that had been spreading through her body starting to pool between her legs as her want spiraled to new heights. She could feel him hard against her core as he moved towards the bed, and she pushed against him, trying to relieve some of the heat. He landed them on the bed in one disastrous heap of limbs reaching to rip away underwear, and then they were blissfully naked.

Draco's fingers slipped inside of her in a fury of energy as his mouth claimed her nipple as she moaned in encouragement at the rush of sensations. "Draco, now," she told him, knowing that she would surely implode if she didn't feel him soon.

In the next moment, he was kissing her hard as his cock slid inside of her. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she bucked up into him, urging him to take a quick pace. He obliged, biting and sucking his way down her throat as he fucked her. She bent her head back. Giving him better access to her skin, loving the contrast between the smooth, delicious heat of his cock and the edgy pain of his teeth.

When he pulled his mouth back from her, she whimpered in annoyance, but he ignored it and kneeled before her. He pulled her ass up off the bed, holding her before him. She cried out as he pushed into her again, deeper this time, and his thumb stroked her clit in the same moment. "Fuck," she told him.

Her hands moved to her own nipples, twisting and tugging them as he brought her closer and closer to her orgasm. She was a mess before him, her mind blank as she writhed and bucked into him. The release hit her hard, the perfect crescendo to the music he played with her body. She heard him moan as she seized around him, and her ass hit the mattress again. Draco fell forward, grabbing the headboard with one hand and planted the other beside her head. He stared down into her eyes as he thrust madly, and she tried not to read into the emotion between them. He kissed her as he came, his lips crashing down onto her as his fingers strangled the sheet beside her head.

"Hermione," he whispered as he lay above her, and he kissed her gently. She tried not to let her thoughts back in, but it was fruitless. Her mind started racing the moment he rolled to her side. Moments later, as she stared at the marks on her skin in her bathroom mirror, she had no longer been able to hide from the question foremost in her mind. How many women had he taken home like this?

When she crawled back into bed, he pulled her body back against his and kissed her shoulder, breathing softly against her skin. "Can I stay?" he asked.

She should have said, "What does this mean?" or "What is this?" Instead, she just nodded and moved the demolished bedding up over them, knowing that she was so, so fucked.

The next morning, he woke her with soft kisses on the back of her neck. They had moved together quickly, their bodies seeming to need to make sure that the night before hadn't been a fluke. It wasn't. She came astride him, his hands on her hips digging tight into her skin. He had pulled her down to kiss him again as he filled her. The energy between them was thick and heavy, nearly intoxicating.

He left early before Ginny could come home and realize he had been there. Hermione had put the wine and glasses away, and gone back to bed. She could smell him on her pillows for days.

"Granger!"

Hermione was pulled from her memories and overthinking by Draco's shout as she approached her office. She wasn't in the mood today. She kept walking, her pace quicker than normal, but not so fast as to look like she was running away from him.

"Granger!" He sounded slightly winded as he ran up next to her a minute later.

"Yes?" she asked, refusing to look over at him. She didn't want to see him. He would look sexy as hell in his damn Auror robes like he always did. She didn't need to look at him to know that she would want him, that it had been far too long for her body since he had spent the night.

"Hey, can we talk about Jones?" he asked.

"What about him?" she kept her tone professional, her eyes forward as she moved through the room full of her employees.

"I just want to check on what you lot are doing with his case," he said. He did this every so often, dropped by to check on a case. Before, she had let him do it. Let him use it as an excuse to get her alone in her office, to tease her in a place where they could do nothing beyond heated kisses and making plans to spend the night together. She couldn't do it anymore.

"We're prosecuting him, Malfoy. That's what we do." She knew her voice had fallen to a new level, something rude and possibly a bit cruel.

"Right. I know. I just wanted to … see … how it's going." He seemed surprised by her response, and she honestly couldn't blame him. She had never said no before. He had always been welcome in her office at any time to discuss whatever he liked.

"Then submit a request for an update." She tried to stop that voice, that cold and disconnected voice that didn't sound at all like her, but she seemed incapable.

"You've never made me submit a request. Ever," he told her, stunned.

"First time for everything."

"I just thought, since we're friends, we could just chat about it. In your office. Like we always do," he told her as they approached her office door.

"Are we?" she asked, actually meeting his eyes for the first time as she stopped before the door.

"Are we what?" he asked.

"Friends?" she asked, the word spoken hardly above a whisper.

"Of course, we are," Draco told her, looking confused.

Hermione turned the doorknob, slipped into her office, and blocked him from following her. "Submit a request, Draco," she told him, and shut the door behind her. She fell back against it quietly. Careful not to let him know that she was leaning against the solid wood to center herself again. After allowing herself this time, she moved toward her desk and began to organize her day.

XOXO

Meg


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Don't Answer His Floo calls

At the Department meeting the following Monday, Hermione was, per usual, the first to arrive. She spread out her work and began reading through her office heads reports. She hadn't finished the first one before the door to the conference room opened. She looked up to see who was coming in. Draco stood there, kicking the door closed with his shoe and carrying a mug of tea in each hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Bringing you tea," he told her as he made his way around the large table. She watched him silently, waiting for him to make his way to her. He set one of the mugs in front of her and sat down in his seat with the other, leaving Harry's chair open between them. As she continued to stare, not knowing what he was up to, he pulled a folder out from under his arm, tossed it on the table, and flipped it open. He grabbed a pen from a pocket and looked at her. "How is the Jones case going?"

She frowned. Apparently this was his way of getting around submitting a request. "Good," she told him. "I just got notice his trial date is set. You and Harry should be getting notification today or tomorrow."

"Thank you. I'll make sure I'm free to attend." He jotted down a note on the parchment inside of the folder.

Hermione waited for him to speak again, but he just grabbed his tea and sipped at it. She looked back at her own work, trying to return to making notes in the margins of the report. He was incredibly distracting as he watched her work. He ran his hand down his thigh to rub at his knee. He flipped the page of the report. He lifted his cup and drank his tea.

Hermione read the same sentence of the report multiple times. None of the words seemed to mean anything, but she didn't want to give in to whatever it was that he was trying to do. He was messing with her mind, and she didn't like it. She reached for the tea before her and took a drink of it, letting her brain try to refocus on her work instead of the man two seats down from her.

Draco shifted in his chair as she put the mug back down on the table, and she looked over at him. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, shrugging.

"Don't you have work to do or something?"

"Not really." He closed the folder in front of him. "I just thought you might want some tea."

"Well, thank you." It was only polite really. He was trying to be nice.

"You're welcome. How was your weekend?" he asked.

"Fine." She was very aware that his sneaky arrival early to the meeting was leading her to breaking her rule to never talk to him alone, but hopefully someone would arrive soon. Also, it wasn't like either of them was really going to try anything inappropriate in the conference room of all places.

"Did you visit your parents?" He knew that she tried to get to her parents house once a week if possible.

"Yes." There had been several mornings with him in her bed that she had tried to work up the nerve to ask him to stay and go with her, but she never had.

"How are they doing?" he asked.

"They are fine."

"Good."

The door opened again, and Hermione looked back to her work, relieved at the interruption.

XXX

Hermione was working late again Thursday evening. She was fairly sure the entire department had gone, but she had set aside this time to work on the World Cup preparations. She grabbed dinner, brought it back to her desk, and worked as she ate. At the particular moment when Draco barged into her office, she was trying to figure out how to kindly respond to the latest letter from the IWC insisting that it was not worth reevaluating the amount of memory charms allowed to be performed on the Muggles around the event.

She looked up from the letter, and Draco fell into the chair across from her desk. She glanced over at the closed door and back to him. "What are you doing?"

"Let me take you to dinner," he said.

"I ate." She pointed at the cold food sitting at the corner of her desk.

Draco frowned at the container. "Let me take you out for real food that you don't eat at your desk so slowly that it gets cold and you barely eat any of it."

"I'm working," she told him.

"It will still be there tomorrow." There was a hint of irritation to his voice, and she wasn't sure what to make of this, or his insistence that she eat with him.

"After you spend the night at my flat," she told him, knowing that it would end there.

"I didn't -"

"Draco -"

"I just want to take you to dinner," he snapped, his tone growing closer and closer to an anger she didn't understand.

"I don't want to go." That wasn't entirely true. She felt bad for making him upset. She was sure that she would enjoy dinner with him, wherever in the Muggle world they ended up, and then she would bring him home because they would stand at the door of her flat in silence for a long time, the tension between them growing unbearable until she invited him in.

"Okay." He was visibly trying not to be upset, but it was impossible not to see it now, not to know that he was annoyed with her. "Do you want to go to dinner this weekend?"

He looked so hopeful that she almost said yes, but she really, really needed to get her life together, and that did not include dinner with someone that wouldn't admit to taking her to dinner. "No," she said softly, hoping that she could at least let him down easy. She couldn't help but wonder what in the world had gotten into him. He had been acting odd, and sure, she had been turning him down and blatantly trying to avoid him honestly, but this seemed like more than that.

Draco was quiet for a long time. She waited as it was clear that he was trying to say something, that the words were on the tip of his tongue. Finally, after several long minutes, he leaned forward, running his hands down his thighs nervously as he met her eyes. "Why did you bring him?"

"What?" She didn't need him to repeat himself. She heard what he said, but the question was so unexpected that she didn't know what else to say in response.

"Trevor." He spat out the name, and Hermione's mouth gaped, her mind trying to determine what in the world was going on.

"Trevor," she repeated. Was he jealous of the man she had sent home alone?

"Yes, Hermione. Trevor. For two years, things are one way, and then you just show up with a fucking date. It was in the damn Prophet next day." She hadn't seen that. She hadn't looked though to be honest. She was too busy being mad at herself to care or think about it. To be fair though, she had only seen Trevor once since that night. They ran into each other in the lift. He had asked her out again, but she'd turned him down and not thought about it again.

Hermione set her quill down on her desk, using the few moments to try to formulate a response to him. "I'm allowed to date, Draco."

"Have you been on a single other date in the past two years?" he asked, his skin growing a bit pink.

"I don't see what that -" She hadn't of course, at least not before Trevor. He had been the exception, one she had only made in the hopes that she would possibly find something interesting enough about him to distract her from being an idiot with Draco, which clearly had not worked. It wasn't her best moment.

"Neither have I." He pushed out of his chair. "Not since that first time, or frankly, quite a while before it."

"Well, I didn't know that."

"What do you think? I've been off shagging other women and just not telling you?"

"You never said," she told him stubbornly. They had never spoken about it, not once, so how was she supposed to know what he was or wasn't doing? If he felt so strongly about her dating, he probably should have mentioned it at some point.

"I didn't realize I had to. I knew you would eventually need more than this, but I didn't think you would just spring it on me like that."

"You don't have any right to tell me when or how I can date anyone. And, it's not like you've been exactly open to talking about us ever," Hermione snapped back. They weren't together. He wasn't her boyfriend. He had never once mentioned anything close to a commitment or insinuation that he thought of her in anyway when they weren't having sex. How in the world could he expect that she owed him anything?

"I think I've earned a heads up, at least."

"I told you I was done."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He was shouting now, and she could feel her tolerance slipping away quickly. How dare he come into her office while she was working and start shouting at her about going to a stupid Ministry dinner with someone else? "You told me you were done every time, but then kept on with me."

"So, I couldn't have just actually been done because I was terrible at keeping to it in the past?" she asked. "I guess I should have talked it over with you in all the spare time we have in the morning before you slip out.

"Don't you even try to blame me. You brought him to that damn dinner, and then you kissed me. I didn't ask you to. I didn't force myself on you, Hermione. I never have, and I'm tired of you insinuating that I'm pursuing you without reason."

"Well, you can be damn sure that whatever it was that we were doing, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm tired of it. You would think that you would have figured that out when I showed up with Trevor, but apparently not."

"It's kind of hard to figure out what in the hell you're doing when you took me home and not him!"

"You shouldn't have even asked if I wanted to!"

"You shouldn't have looked at me like you were waiting for me to!"

"I'm not perfect. Of course I want you to, but I'm trying out being with someone that will actually be seen in public with me, so maybe you can just sod off and let me."

"Fine. We both know we can never be that anyway so we might as well just get it over with."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Merlin, You're so blind to what the world is really like."

"I am not! What are you talking about?"

"Fine, you're not. You have it all figured out. I'm an asshole. It's always my damn fault, anyway. I'm always the one that asks, the one that leaves, the one that everyone disapproves of. So, fuck it. If you want it to be done, Let's be fucking done. I won't bother you again." Draco wrenched open the door to her office. Before she could say a word, he was gone, the door shaking as it recovered from him slamming it behind him.

XXX

The next day, Hermione took off work. She could have gone. She was fine. She wouldn't have even seen him. There was no reason to, but she had the time off, and it was easier to just stay in her room, wrapped up in her bed with a book she had been neglecting for too long.

It was nearly lunchtime when Ginny came in, knocking on the open door as she stood in the entry. "Hermione."

"Yeah." She didn't look up from her book, she just stared down, not wanting to show Ginny her tear streaked face again.

GInny sighed softly and shut the door behind her. "Draco is at the Floo," she said quietly.

Hermione looked up, surprised. "I can't talk to him." Even if she wanted to, there was no way she was going to let him see how much he had affected her. And she did not want to. He had been an ass, well they both had, but they needed to just actually stick to their word for once and let this die.

"He seems really upset. I think he just wants to apologize," Ginny explained.

"Just - tell him I can't talk," Hermione repeated.

"Okay." Ginny nodded. " I'll tell him."

Hermione listened as Ginny walked back to the sitting room. She had left the door open, and Hermione could just hear the two voices.

"She isn't coming," Draco said. At his voice, fresh tears started to fall unbidden. She was about done with her emotions making her feel crazy today. They hadn't even been together. Well, she hadn't thought they were, but after their fight yesterday, whatever they had been was sounding more and more like a relationship that just hadn't gone into the real world. Why couldn't he have just said any of that before they reached this point? Why was he so insistent that they couldn't be together? It didn't really matter.

"She said she can't talk right now," Ginny told him.

"Yeah. I figured. Just tell her I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at her, especially not at work."

"No, you really shouldn't have," Ginny said, but her voice was gentle, the same voice she had been using with Hermione.

"I just want her to know that I'm sorry." Hermione laid down, moved under the covers, and pulled them over her head, blocking out the faint words.

A few minutes later, she heard the sound of Ginny's feet moving across the floor and then felt the bed depress as she sat down. Ginny tugged the blankets down to crawl in next to her friend.

"Why does it feel like we broke up Gin?" she asked, tears rolling down her face to the pillow.

"Because you're in love with him." Ginny rubbed at her back gently.

"He's an idiot," Hermione told her.

"So is Harry, but I still love him."

"You're the one who told me to find a way to get over him." Hermione wasn't upset with Ginny. It wasn't her fault. None of this was. She'd just been trying to help.

"I know. I know I did." Ginny sighed. "I didn't … I think he might honestly care about you, and I didn't realize that before."

"He has a funny way of showing it then."

"I don't think he really knows how to do all this."

"That's not an excuse," Hermione told her. She didn't really want to feel bad for Draco right now, or see his side of things. She just wanted to mourn whatever had just died between them and move on. "Ron figured it out. If Ron can figure out how to be in a relationship with another human being, I'm pretty sure Draco could if he really cared to."

Ginny was silent for a few minutes, but then she spoke again in that same quiet voice."I just hate seeing you like this."

"I'll be fine. I just need to be miserable for a few days first," Hermione assured her.

"Can I bring you anything?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Can I stay here for a bit?"

"Yeah."

XOXO

Meg


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Don't Let Him In

It was well past time for Hermione to have gone to bed when Ron's Patronus showed up. She lay curled up on their couch with a blanket over her lap, a book in her hands, and a cup of tea on the end table beside her lamp. The jack russell terrier flew right into their flat and over to where Ginny sat at the table. The Quidditch maneuvers she was memorizing stretched out before her. Both women looked up in surprise, their bodies visibly grew tense as the Patronus floated before Ginny.

"Harry and Draco are okay, but we're at St. Mungo's. Harry got roughed up a bit. Come up here, but he's going to be fine. Don't worry." Both girls jumped up from their seats as the Patronus vanished.

Hermione could see the panic clear on Ginny's face. She crossed the room to pull her friend into a hug. "It's okay. Ron wouldn't tell you he was fine if he wasn't. It's okay."

"I know," Ginny told her. "I know." But, Hermione knew how she felt because her heart beat rapidly in her chest, her mind racing, worrying about Draco despite Ron's assurances that both he and Harry were going to be okay and the fact that she and Draco hadn't spoken for two weeks.

"Let's go," Hermione said. She released Ginny to move to the hooks by their front door and grab both of their bags. Ginny grabbed her own wand and then crossed the room to pick up Hermione's from next to her tea. They met at the Floo, both of them reaching into the flower pot they kept on the mantel.

Hermione threw her powder into the fireplace first, stepping into the harmless green flames before saying clearly, "St. Mungo's Hospital."

XXX

After an encounter where Hermione was sure that Ginny nearly pulled out her old favorite, the Bat-Bogey Hex, the Welcome Witch directed the pair to the fourth floor for spell damage injuries. When they finally found Harry's room, he was sitting up in his bed. He had stripped out of his Auror Robes, but still wore his jeans and a t-shirt.

"Gin," he said, smiling brightly as Ginny launched herself into his arms.

"You're okay?" she asked, burying her face in his neck. Hermione saw her body shake a few times and looked away from the pair to Ron who met her eyes and motioned back to the hallway. She nodded and led the way back through the door.

"What happened?" she asked once they were walking down the hall. She crossed her arms and rubbed at the goose pimples on her skin.

"Some nutter lost it on his wife. Harry and Draco got called in. I got off work just as their report came in that they were bringing her here, so I came straight away."

"Harry looks all right, at least. How is Draco?" she asked, needing to know where he was.

"Harry had some nasty cuts. They've already healed them, but the bastard was throwing curses like they were Leprechaun Gold, so they want to make sure none of the spells that hit him were anything serious. Draco was here, he got looked over, but refused to stay for observation. He wanted to get back to the Ministry to deal with the guy."

Hermione resisted the urge to tell Ron to find someone to drag Draco back for observation. Instead, she went into work mode. "Do I need to go into the office?" She would have to take the lead on prosecution for this one. If she had her way, and she would, this man would be in Azkaban for a very long time.

"I don't know. You might see if the healers will tell you anything about his wife. She's in here." He pointed his thumb at a room they were passing with a closed door. "Her name is Ella Alby. I don't think there is anything you could do at this point. I would get some sleep and save it for tomorrow." Ron sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "The Obliviators are out dealing with clean up in the neighborhood. They live on a Muggle street, of course. The Law Enforcement Patrol is on the house."

"I'll send an owl to make sure the file is on my desk in the morning then," Hermione told him. They arrived at the Healer station, and a young, pretty mediwitch looked up at them from a pile of parchment.

"Can I help -" She cut off as she caught sight of Ron and Hermione standing before her.

"Hi, I'm Hermione Granger, Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office. I was hoping you might be able to let me know how Mrs. Alby is doing."

The mediwitch nodded, her mouth still open. "I'll - uh - have to get my superior."

"Yes, that would be wonderful. Thank you," Hermione told her, smiling. No matter how many years they spent working normal jobs and living normal lives, this still happened fairly often to them. They still made people speechless the first time they met them when they weren't prepared.

Ron and Hermione waited at the station as the woman vanished. Ron leaned against the counter and rubbed at his face. "Did you tell Oliver you were going to be late?" Hermione asked him.

"He's in Brazil." Ron frowned.

"I thought he was home this week."

"Yeah. The schedule changed. He hasn't been home for two weeks now."

"That's terrible."

"Tell me about it," Ron grumbled.

"Ms. Granger." A tall, thin man in healer robes approached, the mediwitch trailing behind him returned to her position behind the counter. "I'm Healer Nash." He held his hand out, and Hermione shook it.

"Hermione Granger. This is Ron Weasley."

"Mediwitch Chatham told me that you were hoping to hear about Mrs. Alby."

"Yes. I will personally be taking care of her case for the DMLE."

"That is reassuring to hear. Mrs. Alby's condition was mostly stable when she came in. If your department will send over the paperwork in the morning, I'll ensure that the information gets to you quickly. She's resting now, doing much better physically, but I would guess we'll hold on to her for a few days if she will let us. She's certainly been through an ordeal this evening."

"Has her husband been to the hospital yet?" Hermione asked him, realizing that Ron hadn't mentioned.

"No, I believe they have him at the Ministry. Would you like me to send someone over?"

"Yes. We need to make sure that this was really him and not something else. We never can know right off with things like this."

"I will send a team over as soon as we're done here then."

"Make sure you tell them to let the Aurors know I've requested he be seen. I'll send word to let them know as well."

"I will, Ms. Granger. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you or Mrs. Alby to help."

"I will. Thank you Healer Nash."

XXX

Hermione had been home for nearly an hour when she heard a knock at her front door. She had been in her bed, her mind racing over the events of the evening and plans for what she would need to accomplish the next day. She considered ignoring the knock, sure that she knew who was standing on the other side of the door. It had to be Draco. She had just left the only other people who would show up at her apartment in the middle of the night.

Ultimately, when he knocked a second time, she shoved her blankets aside and slid out of bed, her mind reminding her of her new rules as she walked quickly down the hall, ignoring her own best judgment. She hesitated at the doorway, her hand on the doorknob.

"Draco," she said through the door. She couldn't let him in. She could not. It would not end well. It would be a disaster. It always was.

"I know. I shouldn't be here," he said. His voice slid through the doors and into the pit of her stomach, joining the growing weight of stress and need compiling there.

"You really, really shouldn't," she told him.

"I needed to hear your voice." There was a soft thud against the door, and Hermione imagined him standing on the other side, his palms against the wood, his forehead falling down against the wood as he closed his eyes.

"What does that mean, Draco?" she asked. She couldn't let herself get wrapped up in this right now, in making things into something they weren't.

"We got a case tonight," he said, which wasn't really an answer.

"I know," she told him, remembering the way Ron had spoken about the ordeal.

"It was …" - he stopped as if collecting himself - "she looks so much like you."

"It wasn't me" Hermione's hand moved up to lay flat against the wood of the door as if he might be able to feel it.

"I know," he agreed.

"I'm fine," she added. "I'm not hurt."

"I could have hurt you like that." His words were soft, barely audible through the door.

She didn't hesitate to respond. "You couldn't."

"During the war…"

"Draco, it's been so long," Hermione insisted.

"It doesn't matter how long it's been."

"Yes, it does. I know you wouldn't hurt me."

"Is that why we're having this discussion through the door?" he asked, and she sighed, her heart clenching at his words. He wasn't wrong. The door between them was supposed to keep her from being hurt, but not the kind of hurt he was talking about.

"That isn't the same," she said.

He was quiet for a long minute. "I just needed to know you're okay."

"I am," she said, careful to make her voice steady despite the pit of conflicting emotions forming within her.

"Okay."

She let her forehead fall against the door as she sighed. Her fingers splayed across the wood as if she could touch him through it. He wasn't leaving. She would hear his footsteps if he left. "What is it?" she asked.

"I'm just going to stay out here tonight."

"Draco, you can't guard my front door." Why would he even want to guard her front door? This wasn't like him. Sitting outside her door, protecting her didn't really seem to fall into the same category as leaving in the morning before her roommate woke up or keeping the fact that they were sleeping together a secret from everyone in their lives.

"I can. I am. I went to check on Harry, and he said Ginny was staying at his place tonight."

"Yeah, I know. But, I can take care of myself." She was a fairly decent witch, after all. She had spent more than a few nights in the flat alone when Ginny stayed over at Harry's. She didn't need him, or anyone, to protect her from anything.

"I just want to make sure." There was a long silence, and Hermione thought he might be done talking to her, that he was just going to stand out there now, quiet and guarding the hallway to her flat like some sort of suit of armor, but he wasn't done. "I wanted to go home with you after the party."

"What?" she asked, confused about what party he was talking about.

"The engagement party. Merlin, that dress made your ass look incredible."

"Thank you," she smiled against the wood now, wondering what her neighbors would think if they heard him. She highly doubted they would considering it was the middle of the night. Her neighbors were likely in bed and asleep like normal adults.

"I wanted to take it off you so badly," he said. He was quiet now. It was harder to hear him through the door, but she could just make him out. She didn't have anything to say to that, so she just stood, her mind filling with images of what may have happened if she had taken him home after the engagement party. Her overactive imagination was very capable of coming up with multiple scenarios for how he might choose to rid her body of the dress.

"That isn't why though."

"Why what?" She was starting to realize how ridiculous this was. She was a grown woman having a conversation with a grown man through a door.

"Why I wanted to go home with you. I just wanted to talk about Trevor and about everything. I didn't want to fight with you like we did the other day, I just wanted … I don't know."

"Oh."

"I waited too long, and then you were ignoring me by staying with Molly, and I got scared of losing something I never really had."

"Oh." Scared of losing something I never really had. Blood pounded in her ears as they forced her to listen to those words over and over.

"Hermione?" She reached for the doorknob, her fingertips hovering a hair above the metal. Why was she talking to him through a door? Why couldn't she … Maybe if …

"Yeah?" Her own voice was quiet now as well.

"Can I see you? I won't … I just need to see you. I need to see that you're okay."

She knew it was against her rules, but she had done a fairly terrible job of keeping up with them if she was being honest. She shouldn't be talking to him alone. She shouldn't let him in. She wasn't his friend, and he shouldn't be here standing outside the door, but he was. And, maybe that meant something?

She knew she was letting him weaken her resolve. She loved him. Listening to him outside her door, broken and in some sort of pain she wasn't entirely comprehending, she couldn't deny whatever compulsion was driving him to worry about her so much. She opened the door anyway. She broke three rules in one go, knowing that he needed to see her. Whatever he had seen that night, he needed this, and she needed to let him have that.

She was not prepared for the sight of him. He was still wearing his robes, but they were sporting dirt and slices in the fabric. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with a weight she didn't quite understand. He held his wand tight in one hand, his knuckles white from the grip. When he saw her, his entire body seemed to relax. Some of the heaviness in his eyes gave way to relief as some of the heaviness around her heart squeezed, bringing her to the brink of insanity.

"Do you want to come in?" she heard herself ask him.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Don't Be His Friend

Hermione stared at the ceiling in her bedroom. She wasn't the slightest bit tired anymore. Her exhaustion had been cleared away by Draco showing up at her door, their conversation, and the knowledge that he was on the other side of her bedroom wall laying on her couch.

She wanted him.

She was trying desperately to be good, to follow the rules and stick to her plan, but why? It had all gone to shit anyway. She broke the rules, all of them. She let him in, and she had certainly tried to be a friend for him. It was clear he was hurting more than she had realized, his soul still wounded in ways she wasn't sure she fully understood. Five years and he was still trying to figure out how to get rid of the demons he was inflicting upon his own mind.

And, she wanted him.

Hermione lifted her head, looking at her door. She had closed it behind her after giving him blankets and setting him up on the couch, and she wished that she hadn't. An open door could be an invitation, an opportunity for him to come see if she wanted him to join her. An open door could keep her from having to be the one to make the decisions and do the instigating. She was coming to realize that she did this to him a lot. She let him come to her, let him begin things over and over, and then she could blame him when nothing ever changed, but it wasn't his fault, not entirely anyway. Draco had never started anything she didn't want. She had never told him no. She had never wanted to tell him to stop.

She wanted him, and fuck the rules. Fuck her broken heart, and the morning version of herself that would have no one to blame but herself. Hermione pushed the covers away from her body and slid from her bed. Her feet seemed to hit the floor with a considerable thump, but she was sure it was just nerves making her ears hyperaware.

What if he turned her down?

She pulled her arms around herself as she walked to the door, but once she stood in front of it, she froze. He would hear the door open. There was no getting around that. It was old and creaked at the worst possible moments. She took a deep breath as her eyes fell closed. She remembered the feeling of sitting with him, being near him. Her heart raced. She opened her eyes and reached out to pull the door open. Sure enough, it creaked loudly, and she nearly laughed.

She took each step slowly, letting her heart at least attempt to slow back to a regular, healthy rhythm. It was no good. It was still thudding in her ears as she reached the end of the hall.

Draco was laying on the couch, but he was looking towards the hallway. His eyes focused on her as she stood there, biting her lip and playing with the seam on her shirt. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Do you … want to sleep in my room?" she asked.

He sat up but he didn't move from the couch.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah. I want you to." Hermione felt her face flush and hoped the dark of the night would conceal it from him. She took in the sight of him in the moonlight as he watched her carefully. He was wearing only his pants and an undershirt, and she was itching to get her fingers on skin. Hesitant steps drew her closer and closer to him until she stood before him, his knees on either side of her legs. He leaned back against the back of the couch and looked up at her.

His eyes traced her long naked legs and oversized t-shirt with languid appreciation. Finally, when she was losing her nerve, he reached his hand out to rest on her hip, and she leaned into it. His touch seemed to give her some sort of energy that only he was capable of giving. His fingers moved with familiar determination, disappearing beneath her shirt and emerging victorious a moment later, pushing her knickers down her legs.

"Hermione …" he kissed her stomach once the cloth had fallen to the floor.

"Just …" she moved slowly, as if each moment were drawing her closer to potential disaster. She kneeled over him, resting her legs on either side of his lap as she settled into place. She met his eyes for a long, careful breath and pressed her lips against his, closing the gap and claiming his mouth for hers. She didn't want words messing this up right now. She just wanted him and her, their bodies doing what their words could not. She wrapped her fingers in his shirt, holding tight to him.

As soon as she pulled back to breathe, he whispered her name against her lips. "Hermione." He was promising something. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was a promise. She didn't care what he was offering because in this moment, she would take whatever he had to give. All she had done for the last two years was overthink every little thing between them, trying to figure out what they were and why things weren't the way she wanted them to be. At this point, it seemed unlikely that she was going to figure it out, but he had given her things that she hadn't had before. He wasn't seeing anyone else. He wasn't sleeping with other girls, something she had always assumed was going on. He cared about her. Why else would he show up in the middle of the night, ragged and scared enough to spend the night in her hallway? Maybe that was enough for now. Maybe Ginny was right, and he really didn't know how to do all this.

But, he did know how to worship her body, to make her skin come alive with sensations that only he had ever created. He was a musician, and she was his instrument, responding to his lips, his teeth, his fingers, with all the right sighs and moans at all the right times. More quickly than she had really realized it was happening, they were both naked and she was astride him again, her hands wrapped around his neck as she sank down onto him. Relief and satisfaction filled her at the familiar feel of him inside of her.

"Draco," she whispered, answering the call he had started by whispering her name. The energy around them was so heavy, thick with emotions and unsaid words. She wanted to tell him, to break down and let go of her secrets, to make sure he knew exactly what she felt about him, but she couldn't. For some reason, he was keeping this thing between them from crossing that line. She could respect that a little longer. She could give him more time. She could because she was in love with him, and she couldn't stop loving him. She couldn't stop thinking about him, needing him, and now he had given her a few more pieces of the puzzle, pieces that made it seem like he was in this, like he was just as desperate for her as she was for him.

Her hips fell into a quick rhythm, riding him as he licked and bit and tasted her skin, his mouth traveling down her neck to her breasts. He lavished attention on them, pulling her nipple into his mouth to tease it with his tongue as she arched back, her body wanting more, just more of him. It had been far too long since the night she had brought him home, drunk and angry at herself for letting him get into her head again. She hadn't realized at the time that he was angry himself, hurt by her choice to bring a date.

In retrospect, he had been ferocious that night, shoving her against the door of her bedroom to fuck her before she could ever get her dress off. She should have known then, should have realized that jealousy was burning in the pit of his stomach. It didn't make her happy to know that, it made her feel guilty.

"Fuck," Draco growled against her breast, his breath sending shivers across her skin. It had been too long. His fingers dug into her hips as she rode him, her pace bringing him closer with every movement.

"We have all night," she reminded him, and he pulled her face to his, kissing her hard as his own hips rocked up to meet hers. For a few blissful moments, they were lost in the visceral energy of their bodies moving together, their lips fighting to prove something, their hands leaving imprints across each other's skin, and then he suddenly moved his mouth to her shoulder, biting down as he came, and she dug her nails into his back, burying her head in his neck. She was overwhelmed with the desire to cry, and she realized then in that moment, that she had been tense, her body refusing to relax, her heart clenched since Ron's Patronus had shown up that night. Everything inside of her seemed to suddenly realize that Draco was okay, that he wasn't hurt, that he was right there with her, and the tension released in a fury of relief, and she cried. There was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing she could say to explain it to him, but he just held her as tightly as he could, seeming to understand.

XXX

They moved to her bed without talking. He pulled her into him, kissed her softly, and proceeding to take her as slowly as possible. He kissed every inch of her body before he buried himself inside of her, his movements controlled and deliberate until she was lost beneath him, a puddle of satisfaction. He collapsed onto his back and she cuddled close to him, closing her eyes as she rested.

"Draco," she whispered, her body still humming.

"Do you remember the first time?" he asked, his words quiet.

She opened her eyes, and turned to face him. Of course she remembered the first time. She remembered every time. "Yes," she replied simply.

"The next morning …" He trailed off, a pained expression covering his face.

"You left before Ginny could come home and see you. You didn't want …"

"I didn't want to ruin your life," he cut in.

"Ruin my life? By staying? By not hiding the fact that you were willing to sleep with me?" By not making her feel ashamed of what she had done.

Draco leaned forward, kissing her softly "You said, 'I'm going to be Minister one day. I've never told anyone that.'"

"What?" Hermione asked, thrown off by this.

"We were laying in bed, your head on my chest. I was losing my mind, trying to figure out how I got this lucky, how you could possibly want me, how I could have done anything near good enough to deserve you, and you looked up at me with those fucking eyes, and you told me your deepest darkest desire, the one thing you'd never told anyone else." He laughed, as if this was supposed to be hilarious.

"So? What does it matter?" she asked, but she was starting to see now, more pieces of the puzzle fitting into place.

"You can't be the Minister of Magic with a Death Eater in your bed, Hermione. It's never going to happen. Not then. Not now. Not twenty years from now."

"Are you saying that that's how you think I look at you?" she asked.

"I'm saying that's the way it is, and you know that. If you really think about it, really look around at the world we live in, you know that."

"No, I don't. Are you … you left because I said that to you?" Hermione replayed that morning in her head, just as she had a million times. They had been so happy, so blissfully focused on each other, and then he left, setting the tone for every interaction for the next two years.

"What else was I supposed to do?" he asked.

Hermione sat up, pulling the blanket up with her as she went. She really didn't want to be doing this naked, but that didn't seem to be an option at the moment "Talk to me! Have this conversation with me two years ago. I thought … I thought this was just sex to you. All this time …"

Draco kissed her, shoving her back against the bed She kissed him back desperately, losing herself in him. Her hands held his head in place, keeping him from disappearing again.

"Hermione." He breathed against her lips. "I … it was never … I wanted to be with you. That night … it was the best night of my life."

"And, I ruined it," she said simply. "I told you the wrong thing, and I ruined it."

"I've already destroyed so much. I didn't want that on my conscience also. I couldn't take that from you."

"You're an idiot." All this time. All this pain, just because of two sentences.

"I was trying to protect you," he insisted.

"I'm an adult, Draco. I don't need anyone to protect me. I … I needed you to trust me, to be my partner." Hermione pushed at his chest and he moved, letting her sit up. She covered her face with her hands, her head starting to ache.

"Hermione," he touched her back, and she stood, pulling her sheet off the bed as she moved. She wrapped it around her, keeping the focus on their conversation. She knew all too well how good he was at redirecting her with their bodies.

"You don't get to do that. You don't get to steal my choices from me. I get a say. It's my life. I get to choose what I want in my life. You don't get to decide whether I get you or Minister. What if I wanted you you? What if I chose you?" Hermione demanded. In the back of her head, she knew what she would have chosen then, what she would still choose now.

"I couldn't let you."

"You don't have that right!" She could feel tears building against, and she wanted to scream. What the fuck was wrong with her tonight? "You stole two years of being happy with you. Two years of being able to actually tell you that I'm in love with you. Two years of whatever we could have been."

Draco stared at her, his mouth agape, his eyes burning hers. "What did you say?" he asked.

"You know what I fucking said," she snapped.

"Hermione,"

"Don't," she said, putting her hand up.

Draco moved then, sliding out of bed to walk towards her. She backed up, but she only succeeded in hitting the wall, trapped as he approached her. She was so angry, so mad that he had kept this to himself for two fucking years, but he was reaching for her, his hands pulling her closer to him, and he kissed her softly. She kissed him back, because what else was there to do?

"I love you, too," he whispered, and she sobbed.

"I hate you," she said.

"I know. I'm so sorry."

"You're such an asshole."

"I know. I am."

"Don't ever leave St. Mungo's against the Healers advice again."

"What?" he asked, smiling.

"You should have stayed. Harry stayed. They wanted to monitor you. They wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I had to …"

"Never again," she said firmly.

"Okay, I won't." He kissed her again. "We both have to work in a few hours."

"Yeah."

"Have dinner with me tomorrow?" he asked. "We can talk."

"Okay." She let him lead her back to bed and pull her close as the both drifted off to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Broken Rules

The next morning, Hermione headed straight for Harry's office. She needed answers, which meant it was time to bring him into the loop. She and Draco had struggled to get out of bed that morning, both because they were naked and would have rather liked to stay that way and neither of them had gotten much sleep at all. She knew she needed to get to her office. She had to start working on her new case, but she wouldn't be able to focus if she didn't talk to Harry first. He was the only one who knew Draco better than her.

"Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger to see you," his assistant said as she blocked Harry from view as if he had ever turned her down when she had shown up outside of his office.

"Send her in," Harry called. The other woman opened the door wide, and Hermione nodded to her as she moved into Harry's office. The door shut behind her, and she took a seat in one of the two chairs across from his desk.

"What's going on?" Harry's desk was buried under parchment, ink bottles, and quills. There were at least three half empty cups of coffee lingering as well as spare bits of pastries. Somehow this system of chaos worked for him.

Hermione rubbed her hands together nervously, her stomach flipping. "I need you to let me speak and not judge me."

"What?" Harry frowned at her.

"Just let me say what I need to say and remember that I'm a grown woman and I make my own decisions."

"Okay," he said uneasily.

"Draco and I have been sleeping together for two years. I thought it was just sex to him, but last night … well it isn't. The first time, I told him … well, I said that I want to be Minister one day, and he thinks I can't do that if I'm with him." She was rambling, her voice growing higher and quicker as she threw words at him. "He apparently took it upon himself to pick my career for me and not give me the opportunity to make my own choices. But, it doesn't make any sense, Harry. He's an Auror. He's Deputy Head of the department. Nobody cares that he was a Death Eater. It's been so long. Right? Nobody cares?"

Harry sighed loudly and put down the parchment he had been holding. "Hermione, I would have been really happy to go on pretending that I had no idea what the hell you and Draco have been up to."

"You knew?" she asked. "You never said anything!"

Harry laughed and rubbed at his face, clearly feeling as embarrassed and awkward as she was. "Do you have any idea how many times I've come over to your flat, and he's been there?" Harry shook his head. "It's why I told Ginny we only sleep at my place now."

Hermione felt her cheeks heat as a flush spread across her face. "I had no idea."

"I know," Harry told her.

"Well, I'm sorry," she laughed nervously, "but this isn't really about … that."

Harry held his hands up. "If it isn't about _it_ , then you would have left it out of it."

"Believe me, I wouldn't be here talking to you about all of this if I could avoid it," she insisted.

"I love you, you know I do, I just think it's great that you have Ginny to talk about this stuff."

"Ginny doesn't know anything about Draco's crazy thought processes. You know him better than anyone. You're his best friend, Harry."

"Yes, I am. And, you know he'll kill me if he finds out I've talked to you about all this."

"Please," Hermione begged, needing someone to help her understand Draco's actions, which seemed ludicrous to her. She knew that he thought he was doing the right thing, but it didn't make any sense to her looking in on it. She wasn't a child. She didn't need anyone to protect her from having to make hard choices.

"Fine." He sighed deeply, rubbing at his face before replacing his glasses. "This is between you and me."

"Yes," she agreed quickly.

Harry leaned forward. "The DMLE Deputy Head still reviews all of our cases."

"What?" Hermione snapped. This was absolutely unheard of. Harry and Draco were the two highest members of the Auror Department. There was no reason for all of their cases to be under review like a couple of trainees who needed to be watched at every moment.

"Every single one," Harry reiterated, his voice bitter. "We do everything exactly by the book every single time because if we slip up, if we make one mistake, well … Draco has a lot more to lose than his job."

"What?" Hermione asked again. "This doesn't make any sense. Who is behind this?"

"Department Head orders. 'We just want to keep a close eye on him. Make sure he's not slipping back into bad habits.' Fucking assholes." Harry shook his head, glaring at someone she couldn't see.

"Why haven't you done anything?" she demanded. This was such hippogriff shit.

"Seriously, Hermione?"

"It's outrageous!" she yelled. "You're the head of the department!"

"I know it's outrageous, but what do you want me to do? He doesn't want to fight it, and right now, no one knows it's happening. If I start trying to throw my weight around, who knows what happens, and he knows that."

"This is …" Hermione sputtered, struggling to come up with a way to describe her emotions.

"They tried to convince me to switch partners when I was appointed Head Auror. I had to tell them I would resign from the department to get them to lay off and let me appoint Draco Deputy."

Hermione's mouth fell open. They sat there, staring at each other. "Why haven't you ever said?" she asked when she summoned up the ability to speak once again.

"He's my friend. If you or Ron asked me not to, I wouldn't."

"Oh, Harry."

"Nobody really knows what he deals with. I don't think he even tells me all of it." Harry sighed, a long, painful release of breath. "If it was me, the mail alone would have driven me away years ago."

"The mail?" Hermione asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer. All of this was more than she could have ever thought was behind Draco's decision to keep their relationship secret, occasional sex.

"You had to realize. Those people out there, the rest of the Wizarding World, they don't know him, Hermione. They just think they do. They have no interest in trusting him." Harry sighed. "If I hadn't been pushed into getting to know him better, I wouldn't have known that he was trustworthy. I would have spent the rest of my life thinking the same things."

"And, this is why he doesn't want to be with anyone?" Hermione asked.

"This is why he doesn't want to be with you," Harry replied.

"Then … why didn't he just end it?" She didn't really expect him to have an answer, but her heart was aching, and she still felt like she had wasted the last two years of her lives.

"Why didn't you?" he asked softly.

"I love him. I wouldn't have … if I knew, Harry, I would have chosen him. You know that, right?" Hermione asked.

"He didn't want you to." Harry shrugged. "He doesn't think he's worth that."

"He is," she insisted.

"You don't have to convince me. I made up my mind a long time ago."

"I can't … all this time. I just feel like I've wasted two years of my life." Hermione wiped at her eyes, trying to keep the tears forming there from starting to fall down her face.

"Then tell him that and stop letting him play the sacrificial victim." Harry glanced towards the door. "I don't want to shove you out, but he's going to be here any moment."

"Yeah, okay." Hermione pushed herself up from the chair, and Harry moved around to hug her. He pulled her in, hugging her tightly.

"He's a good man, Hermione. You could do much, much worse."

Hermione laughed against his chest. "I know."

XXX

Hermione's day was spent in meetings with St. Mungo's staff hearing about the status of the Alby's. Their story wasn't any less heartbreaking in the light of the morning. It was a very long, hard day, and by the end of it, she was exhausted and emotionally drained. In the back of her mind as she worked, she couldn't stop thinking about Draco and her conversation with Harry that morning.

Her blood was boiling by the end of the day, a combination of her anger at what Mrs. Alby had face and what Draco was put through each and every day at his job. It was so hard for her to even wrap her head around what Harry was saying to her. Why had they even given Harry the position if they didn't trust him to know his partner? Why continue to review their cases after all these years? Was Draco going to lose his mind all of the sudden and start sabotaging the Ministry? It didn't make any sense. It took every bit of sense she had left in her head to keep her from walking down to the DMLE Department Head's office and telling him exactly how she felt about his error in judgement. Despite her desire to be with Draco and figure out their lives, she worked late, pushing herself to get as much done as she could.

By the time she walked into her flat that night, Draco was sitting at the table with Ginny, both of them nursing a drink. "Hey," she said to them both, butterflies fluttering in her stomach at the sight of him again. It just felt right to have him home.

"How was it?" Ginny asked. She knew that Hermione had been facing a long day dealing with the repercussions of the night before.

"Long. Bad," Hermione told her, shaking her head at the memory of the long meetings she had been in that day with the healers from St. Mungo's.

"Do you want to reschedule?" Draco asked.

"No," she told him, hoping that she hadn't sounded as desperate as she felt. She couldn't handle more time to think. She needed answers and decisions and resolution.

Ginny stood, patting Hermione's arm as she passed her. "I'm heading to Harry's."

"You don't have to," Hermione told her, but she was grateful. Having the flat to themselves would make this easier.

"I'd be going anyway." Ginny lifted her purse and waved them both. "Have a good night."

"Bye, Ginny. Thanks for the drink," Draco told her, lifting his glass towards her.

"No problem. See you later." She left the flat through the front door, leaving Hermione standing at the table beside Draco.

"How was your day?" she asked him, suddenly feeling incapable of having an appropriate conversation with another adult.

"Long." He pushed back from the table and moved slowly towards her, taking deliberate, calculated steps. She stood her ground, biting in her bottom lip as he approached her. "I couldn't stop thinking about you." His voice was low and husky, the way it got when he was buried inside of her, whispering in her ear.

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to gather her senses, but a rush of need flooded her anyway, not helped by the sensation of his fingers on her hand. As she opened her eyes again, she took in the sight of him in front of her, staring back into her eyes, his gaze intense and full of desire.

"We're supposed to be talking," she told him.

"I know." He locked his fingers with hers.

"We really need to talk."

Draco leaned in and her head tilted, allowing him to kiss the base of her neck softly. "I really just want to taste you first."

"Draco." Her body refused to listen to sense, wanting to be as close to him as possible.

"Hermione, I want you," he said.

"I want you, too," she admitted.

"And, you need to relax before we have any serious conversations about our future." Draco's tongue did a very good job of helping him make his argument.

"But, we will have our serious conversation. Tonight. After," she said, but her hands were pulling his shirt out of his jeans, making her insistence a little less forceful.

"Yes, he agreed. After." Draco kissed her then, sucking softly at her lips, tasting her as they parted.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: New Path

Everything about the evening was slow. Draco teased her as he removed Hermione's Ministry robes, driving her to frustration and demands that went unanswered. When she was finally, blissfully nude before him, he lifted her into his arms, carrying her back to her room. She lay her head against his chest, kissing his shirt softly, wishing he had already removed it to reveal his skin. Instead, he tortured her again. He dropped her onto the bed and stood back from it, languidly removing his own clothes with deliberate care for each and every motion. She ached to try and help him along, but she refused to play his little game. With each moment that he delayed, killing her a little more, he was killing himself too, and she knew it. She knew he wanted her, knew that his will was fighting his own desire, battling it out for dominance.

So, she watched and waited. Spread out naked on her bed, she touched her own body with eager fingers, playing the game right back at him. By the time her fingers had explored her breasts and stomach thoroughly and were dipping into the heated expanse between her thighs, Draco was pulling off his pants, leaving him bare before her. She arched and let out a sharp breath as she touched her clit, eliciting a tiny bit of relief.

"That's my job," he chided her, as he moved across the room.

"Well, you aren't doing it," she told him, her fingers twisting sweet, sweet circles around the nub. Draco grabbed her hand and pulled it away, making her huff in irritation.

"If you're going to play games, I'm perfectly capable of helping myself," she said plainly, smiling at him.

"I'm not playing any games. I'm savoring what it's like to be with you and not wonder if you're worried about who might find out." He dipped his head down and kissed the inside of her thighs. "What it's like to be with you and wonder if you're as desperately in love with me as I am with you." She flushed in response to his words, not sure that she would ever tire of hearing him say that he loved her, certainly not any time soon. Draco's tongue trailed a path up to her core, and he began to devour her, tasting every bit of her need and want. He moaned against her skin, and the tremors caused her to moan in response, her body dying to arch into him, to increase the pressure he was creating.

"Fuck," she murmured. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." His tongue drew out the words again and again, spinning a dreadfully illicit pattern across her slit. She dug her fingers into the sheets to keep from ripping out his hair. His own fingers dug into her flesh, pulling her into him, helping him bury himself deep inside of her.

Small ripples started to shake from her core, drawing and pulling and shoving her closer and closer to the edge of perfection, and still he moaned. It was so fucking hot to have his face buried in her, his mouth completely focused on her pleasure, and have him reacting so viscerally in response. "Draco," she cried, this time she did grab his hair, holding him captive as she let out an indescribable noise as her orgasm washed over her, shattering her bit by bit.

As she fell back against the sheets, Draco emerged, wiping at his grinning mouth. "You're ridiculous," she told him, blushing for an entirely different reason than before.

"You were doubting my abilities. I couldn't have that," he replied coyly.

Hermione reached out, pulling him up to her. They kissed hard, the need bubbling up inside of her again as he spread her legs. She urged him on, whispering foul things in his ear, things that she would never repeat in the light of day, or even in the light of her bedroom without this intensity, this fire between them making it seem like the perfect thing to do in the moment when he buried himself in her, stopping himself from crying out by taking her breast in his mouth.

And, he tried to be slow. He tried to tease and play and make her ache, but his resolve crumbled into a frenzy of his own loss of control, and he became quick instead, his body moving with instinct rather than calculation. Hermione loved every moment of Draco's spiral out of control, knowing that he was just as lost as she was, lost in each moment as if it was their last to show the other just how much they cared about them, wanted them, no, needed them. It was a need so deep at this point that she was sure it was part of her soul, and to try and take it away now would surely rip it from her body and leave her an empty husk.

They collapsed eventually, a tangle of limbs as their hearts raced as one, pounding so loudly they could feel it in their ears as they tried to recover. Hermione thought she may have drifted off for a few moments, her mind needing a rest. When she felt Draco kiss her shoulder, she hummed in response to let him know she was awake.

"Talk?" he asked, and she let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know if I can," she admitted. It needed to happen, this talk, but a few more moments of bliss would have been welcome before real life came demanding to be dealt with.

"You can." He kissed her shoulder again, and she nodded.

"Okay," Hermione turned towards him, pulling the blankets closer to her. It made her feel more secure to have something physical to hold on to. Even though they had agreed to talk, neither one of them seemed to know how to begin. She watched his face as he watched hers, both quiet.

Finally, after several silent minutes, Draco asked, "What are you thinking?"

"That I'm not going backwards," she told him.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going backwards. I'm not going back to whatever we were doing before." She was done with hiding and secrets and things that only caused them both pain.

"Okay." Draco nodded. He reached out and ran his knuckles against hers.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, letting her fingers unravel from the blanket she had been holding tightly.

Draco linked his fingers with hers as he formulated a response. "That I don't want to ruin your career, but I don't want to go backwards either."

"I want you to meet my parents." She hadn't really thought about the words before they were coming out of her mouth. They just tumbled out, unbidden, laying everything out there.

Draco raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed. "I mean, if you want to have lunch with Narcissa we can, but …"

"I do." She squeezed his fingers in hers for a moment.

"What? Really? Why?" He laughed, and it hurt her heart to think that he could imagine a world where they would be together, and his mother wouldn't be part of Hermione's life.

"If we're going to try to be something real, something outside of this bed, then I want to know all of you, every part. Your mother is part of you," Hermione explained.

"Yes," he agreed. "The crazy part I have spent my entire adult life working to change."

"Draco -" Hermione leaned forward, kissing him softly "- not everything you learned from your parents is horrible."

Draco pulled back, releasing her hand as he pushed into a sitting position. He rubbed at his face and closed his eyes. Hermione followed him, unsure of how to progress from this point. She didn't want to push him too hard, but he needed to know what she wanted, what she expected as they continued, which was everything. She expected everything, no holding back.

"I want date night with our friends. I want to dance at Harry and Ginny's wedding with you." Draco looked up, his cool steel eyes not revealing his thoughts. "I want to know that when I need you, you're going to be there, and when you need me, you're going to let me in."

"Hermione," he began, but she held up a hand.

"Draco, I'm done with this." She motioned around them at the room they had hidden in for the past two years, her heart nearly breaking as she prepared to say the rest of it. "I'm done hiding. I'm in this 100%, or I'm out. I can't take anymore hiding."

"You don't understand what being with me means," he insisted.

"I don't care. Let them wonder how in the world we could end up together." Hermione held her voice steady even as her blood raged again in her veins. She would destroy them, each and every person involved in this bullshit taking place in the DMLE. She would rise, higher and faster than any Muggle-born before her, and she would be Minister with Draco at her side, and she would destroy them before they realized what had even happened.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit mad?" Draco asked, a smile curling up at the corner of his mouth.

Hermione nodded, unfazed. "Ron. All the time, actually."

"I know that you think you know what you're getting into, but there are things you don't know about what …" He seemed to be struggling to come up with the right words. She waited, letting him find them. "Just, what it's like to be around me every day."

"Then, tell me. I want to know. I deserve to know and be able to make my own decisions," Hermione reminded him.

"I know you're right, but it doesn't make it any easier."

"Why is it so hard?" It wasn't easy for her to be so patient about this, to keep her calm. She was so used to speaking her mind and being independent and taking care of everything herself, and now she had learned that he had spent the last two years of her life deciding over and over that she couldn't make this decision for herself. It was a constant battle to remind herself that he had been trying to do what he thought was best.

"It's … well, embarrassing, honestly."

"What is?" She thought she knew. Harry had told her, but Draco deserved the opportunity to tell her himself, in his own way.

"I still get hate mail nearly every day," he whispered, clearly ashamed.

"Because of the war?" she asked.

"Yes, and because I work so closely with Harry. People think that I've bewitched him into being my friend and partner. I must … have him under the Imperius Curse."

"That's absurd. No one who knows you would ever believe that." She felt the fire in her belly raging more fiercely than before.

"I know, but it doesn't stop people from believing it."

"The people who matter would never believe that," she told him.

"That's the thing, though," he said. "Some of them do."

"What do you mean?"

"Hermione," he sighed her name, shaking his head in the process, as if he was losing steam. She needed him to tell her, to be open with her, so that they could deal with this head on. She wasn't about to let these fools destroy the rest of their lives the way they had destroyed the past two years.

"You can tell me anything, Draco. We'll … figure it out," she tried to sound reassuring, but she was so angry that she wasn't sure how successful she had been.

"You say that, but … I really don't think you understand the effect that I can have on your career."

"Just tell me what's going on."

"Harry, when he was promoted, they tried to get him to replace me, find another partner to be his deputy head."

"Because of the war?" Hermione asked him again.

"Yes. It was the same bollocks. They were concerned about me being too close to him, about the perception of us as a team. They were … they still are reviewing all of our cases."

"Draco," she said sadly.

"Don't," he said shortly. "Don't pity me."

"I'm not pitying you. What they are doing is wrong. It isn't pity to be angry for you, and Harry."

"Either way, I'm not someone you want to be associated with on a personal level, Hermione," he insisted.

"I'm not going to let some arseholes at the Ministry-"

"Dammit, this is your life we're talking about. Your dream. Everything you've ever wanted," he was angry now, his cheeks tinged pink.

"All of this," Hermione motioned at the world around them, "it doesn't … if I have no one, if I'm alone the rest of my life, what does it matter?"

"You're not going to be alone the rest of your life. You would … someone," he told her, pained.

"I don't want someone. I want you." She squeezed his hand again.

"You'll be making your job very, very hard overnight."

"My job is already hard. No one likes to listen to a Muggle-born know-it-all. Let them try to keep me from what I know belongs to me."

"I just don't -"

"Draco, just stop. I want to be with you. I want you. You've given me all of the information, and I made my choice two years ago, and it hasn't changed. Unless you tell me that you don't love me, and you don't want to be with me, I'm in. I'm jumping in, damn the consequences."

Draco was silent for a long time, looking down at his own hands, and then one moved, reaching to grab hers. "So, how should we do this thing, then?"

Hermione shifted quickly from convincing him to planning. "I think we should do something publically to get the hard bit over with as quickly as possible," she told him.

"Okay."

"We have a few options. We can head out for dinner alone somewhere that we know we will be spotted, or with some friends, or I can talk to some contacts at the Prophet. We could do an interview or leak it." She had been thinking about their options all day, trying to determine what the best path would be. The sooner they got this part over with the less time he had to try to martyr himself again.

"An interview sounds horrible," he told her.

Hermione put up her hands, laughing. "I agree, but it's an option that we have available."

"Okay. No interview," he said. "Do you want to swing it alone or with friends?"

"It wouldn't be horrible to have some moral support along," she told him. "And, Oliver's been gone for ages, so I'm sure Ron would be glad to go out."

Draco nodded. "I'll talk to Harry then. See when he and Gin are available."

"Are we really doing this?" Hermione asked, unable to keep the mad grin off her face.

"As long as you don't wake up and realize you're making a terrible mistake." He moved forward, kissing her deeply as his hands pulled at the blanket, revealing her body to him.

"Never," she whispered against his lips. "As long as you actually feed me soon. I get crabby when I don't get my dinner."

Draco made a noise suspiciously close to a snort. "Oh, is that why we got into a screaming match when I tried to take you to dinner?"

"No." Draco's hand traced a path up her stomach to her breast. "We got into a screaming match when you tried to take me to dinner because you are an idiot."

"We'll you're signing on to an official courtship with this idiot, so what are you?" His thumb began to spin circles around her nipple, bringing them to attention.

Hermione nearly giggled in response to his words. "Did you just say courtship?" She rose to her knees, shifting closer to Draco's body.

"Oh, shut up. What do you know about the delicate speech of the well bred?" He bent his head to suck at the sensitive skin below her ear.

"You should be careful." She struggled to maintain control over her voice. "I know just how indelicate your speech can get." She reached for his cock, stroking him as she spoke.

"I thought you were hungry," he reminded her as his hips rocked into her hand.

"It can wait a bit." She shoved him, pushing his back down to the bed, and slid her body over his. He stared up at her like she was the only meal he would ever need again.

XXX

A/N: Thank you so much for your continued support and for asking how I'm doing. I'm doing wonderful, just busy with real life. I'm trying to get as much writing in as I can, and I will do my best to update as often as I can.

XOXO

 **Meg**


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